A Game of Proof

‘Don’t be silly, mum — of course he couldn’t kill her.’

‘Of course not, no — but you see how important it is what you say.’ Suddenly her attention was distracted by the sight of Emily’s young man. What’s he doing here, she thought. We don’t need him. She attempted a polite, hostess-type smile. ‘I think you’d better go.’

‘Er, yeah, okay.’ The young man began to get up. ‘It’s a bad time.’

But Emily dragged him down again beside her. ‘No! I want him to stay. I’ve just come home and you’re thinking about Simon again, aren’t you, mum? At least Larry cares about me.’

‘And we don’t, I suppose? We’ve been looking for you for two days, Emily! And Jasmine’s dead!’

‘I do know that, Mum. It’s awful.’

‘You don’t know it, not really. I’ve just seen her body, wearing your jacket. Emily, I thought it was going to be you!’

‘So it’s all my fault now, is it?’ Emily shook her head furiously, tears in her eyes — of self-pity, Sarah thought coldly. Teenagers. As if she’s the one suffering here.

The young man put one arm round Emily’s shoulder while he stroked her hair with the other. ‘It must have been terrible, seeing that body, Mrs Newby,’ he ventured, to Sarah’s surprise.

‘Yes, it was.’ This mediation from a complete stranger who had caused all this trouble confused Sarah deeply. She struggled to remain polite. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.’

‘Larry. Larry Dyson.’

‘Well, Larry, since you’re here, do you mind explaining exactly why you asked Emily to go away with you to this … tree protest of yours for two nights? You can see the monumental amount of trouble it’s caused.’

Sarah’s sharp tone infuriated Emily further. ‘He didn’t ask me, I chose to go!’

Larry nodded. ‘Yeah, well, that’s right. You may not realise it, Mrs Newby, but Emmy really was very unhappy. She told me how she was feeling and when I said where I was going she asked to come with me. No one knew anything was going to happen to Jasmine. And direct action is important. Just as important as getting a few bits of paper from school.’

Emmy, Sarah thought. This ridiculous boy even wants to change her name. But before she could respond Bob took over, in headmaster mode.

‘GCSEs aren’t just bits of paper, young man — they can affect your whole life. You’d know that if you were a student.’

‘I am a student, thank you very much. At St John’s.’

‘Well, that’s something, at least. Doing what?’

‘Earth sciences. I do know what I’m talking about. I study the environment, as it happens, as well as actually trying to do something about it.’

‘You could have phoned, Emily,’ Sarah said. ‘Didn’t anyone have a mobile?’

‘Yes, but I thought if I phoned you’d just chew my head off — like you’re both doing now! Come on, Larry, we’d better leave.’ She stood abruptly, but Bob blocked her way to the door.

‘Oh no. You’re not going anywhere. Not again.’

‘Dad! Please — let me go!’

‘No.’ It seemed to Sarah that Bob was about to resort to physical restraint, which would be ridiculous, because he was the most clumsy of men. But of course he was right, Emily couldn’t possibly just walk out again. Not now, after all this. Sarah stood beside Bob for support. If he had no arguments, she had.

‘Look, we’ve all had a terrible shock, and walking out now won’t make it any better. Anyway, Emily, you’re not sixteen yet, so if Larry has had any kind of sexual relationship with you he’s committing an offence. You do realise that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, well it’s a bit late for that now!’

Silence. Mother and daughter stared at each other. ‘You mean, you have …’

Emily smiled. ‘There’s no need to look shocked, Mum, everyone does it! You did!’

‘That’s different,’ Sarah responded, weakly. ‘You know it is …’

‘No it isn’t. How old were you when Simon was born? Sixteen?’

‘You’re not pregnant?’ Bob burst in.

‘Oh come on, Dad! I do have some sense. More than Mum had, anyway. I brought Larry here for you to meet him. It’s important, Mum.’

And so it comes full circle, Sarah thought. Did my parents feel like this too, all those years ago? She tried and failed to make a pattern out of the kaleidoscope of emotions swirling through her mind — anger, regret, a piercing sense of loss, a sense of her own and Bob’s growing irrelevance in Emily’s eyes. But after the horror of Jasmine’s death it was hard to focus on this too. She was going to have to tell Simon about Jasmine soon, poor boy. But first there was this.

Sarah looked at the young couple standing defiantly in front of her and thought that’s how I was, that’s exactly how Kevin and I must have looked. She began to feel a strange joy, too, as well as enormous anxiety, and a growing curiosity about this intense skinny grubby young man who had sneaked into their house like a gypsy thief and stolen their daughter away. Succeeding all these was a desire not to get this wrong as her own parents had done; as she and Bob had done with Simon. We mustn’t fail with Emily too.

Bob was floundering too. ‘Look, Emily love, we’re not Neanderthals. If you want to have a boyfriend that’s fine. But you don’t have to move out, of course not. You’re far too young for that. This is your home, for goodness’ sake.’

Emily hesitated. ‘Yes, dad, that’s why we came here. But if you won’t accept Larry …’

Sarah found her voice. ‘We’ve only just met him, Emily. And we’ve been through the most terrible two days. But maybe it’s a blessing that you’ve found this young man, after all. We would like to get to know him, really. Please, don’t go.’

It was, Emily reflected later, very possibly the first time in her life that her mother had actually asked her to do something. She hesitated, not having learnt the appropriate response. Larry tugged her hand gently, pulling her back towards the sofa, making up her mind for her.

‘I’ll get some coffee,’ said Bob. ‘I think we all need some.’

‘I’m taking over this case, Bateson,’ Will Churchill observed casually on the steps outside the mortuary. ‘You’ve enough unsolved mysteries on your plate as it is.’

Terry was stunned. There was no way this decision was based on concern for his personal welfare. ‘May I ask why, sir?’

Churchill strolled towards his car. ‘Simple. This is a high profile case that’s likely to receive a lot of media exposure, so it deserves the best quality attention from our side.’

‘And you think I can’t provide that, sir?’ The insult had to be deliberate. Churchill put a patronising arm on his shoulder but withdrew it hurriedly at the look on Terry’s face.

‘What I think, Terence old son, is that your mind’s on other things. Even this morning, you were late at the crime scene …’

‘I was at my kid’s school when I was called, sir. It only took a few minutes but it was important for her!’

‘Well, exactly, there’s an example. We all understand your family problems but it doesn’t help your work. Look at this Harker case — the bugger gets off and why? Because his fancy knickers barrister catches you telling lies during interrogation! It was in the Evening Press — York detective lies to rape suspect. How’s that help public confidence in the police, eh? You tell me!’

‘It was a trick with words, sir. All lawyers do it.’

‘Only if we give them the chance. Plus she found an alibi witness you should have known about. So there we are, a public laughing stock. What’s tonight’s headline, do you think? Serial rapist strikes again?’

‘More than likely, yes sir.’ Terry nodded, remembering the string of such articles since the Clayton and Whitaker cases. ‘But this time we may have got him. After all, this girl Jasmine Hurst was killed in the same way as Maria Clayton — throat cut with a knife, out of doors in a lonely area — only this time he’s left some semen. So maybe her killer killed Clayton as well.’

‘Back to your serial rapist theory, eh, Terence?’Churchill laughed. ‘Didn’t you come to me, time and time again, claiming Gary Harker did all these crimes! Or did I dream that, perhaps? Tell me I dreamt it.’